I think I'm in love again !!

Well this is my new baby a Canon 5d3 and I took her out for a test drive last weekend on a wedding shoot. Overall first impressions were very impressive it has loads of features but I never really had the time to use many of them so I will be putting it through it's paces over the coming weeks

I bought this camera for its low light capabilities especially as I will be photographing a lot of weddings so I needed a fast camera combined with a fast lens for dark church interiors

This camera fits the bill perfectly so I tried a few test shots in a really dark church interior and shown below are some of the results. I took the shot below at 25600 ISO and wow ! I can't hardly see any noise in the shot. This is a jpg straight out of the camera,no manipulation,nothing, just shot as seen and I'm pretty impressed

                                                     This is the metadata from the shot

A few more shots below which show some really fine detail with really rich colours from the stained glass windows of the church

When this Camara first came out I thought it was very expensive at £3000, however, the prices have now dropped down considerably and you can pickup one of these new models  for about £2000

There are still a lot of other features on this camera I need to test and will be trying these out over the coming weeks, I will update this blog later with my findings

If you shop around now you now can buy the canon 5d2 for £1150,an absolute bargain, which is also an excellent camera, I use one of these now for my backup camera and the results are amazing

I wanted full frame cameras for clarity with low noise and thats exactly what you get

If anybody wants to buy these cameras, get in touch and I'll show you where to buy at the lowest prices on the net

Research and inspiration (Best of wedding photography)

Research and Inspiration

Contemporary/Wedding /fashion/photography

This is a website I have been researching for sometime now to give me inspiration into my wedding photography. The site has numerous links to the top wedding photographers of the world which I find to be very inspirational. Using this site helps me to keep in touch with the latest trends,fashions and photographers

http://www.bestofweddingphotography.com

An Inspirational image from the site

This is one of photographer Nic pedridis's images

This type of photography appeals to me using dramatic locations,creative lighting and stylish clothing all of these elements produce stunning photography. It's costly to setup and very time consuming to source locations and create creative lighting effects but well worth the effort which produces creative/fashion/wedding photography

This is an extract from Nic's website/blog

I love the low saturation Rembrandt light-dark images. I am influenced by, and “steal ideas” from, great photographers like Nick Ghionis, David Beckstead, Rocco Ancora, Megaloudis, Shembri, Yervant, Garner and so many others. I believe that we all have something to share and to give. My favorite images are ones I usually get in low-light conditions, and even though I am usually shooting in ambient daylight, I often use a flash and/or a video light.

http://www.bestofweddingphotography.com/blog/nik-pekridis-lens-light-honor/

Wedding ideas and inspiration

Shown here on this website is a glimpse of some of the ideas and inspiration I am pursuing...under construction

http://whimsicalwonderlandweddings.com/2012/05/theatrical-monochrome-wedding-ideas.html

Planned Wedding shoot 22nd Sept 2012

Well it's nice to be back on the scene again and yes I have some catching up to do but hey Iv'e got the buzz again. We didn't know if we would be continuing on the course but now that's all been sorted . It will be nice to catch up with you all again. Well Jim and I have been working in the background on our wedding photog business and we are busy building our website etc 

We are shooting tomorrow with a new model for some publicity shots for our website which we hope to launch in the spring when we hope everything will fall in place to place. 
Shown here is our model Helen who will be posing as a bride to be. I have been busy this week sourcing some nice locations, costumes, make up artists etc 

I hired my model from one of the top modding sites and arranged a Time for Prints session. I felt really sorry for Helen our model as she had lost her job last week so we chipped in a little dosh to help her out with her finances  

Men at Work

Men at work  (Helen model shoot)

Business planning  

We are in the process of compiling some really good images for our website which we plan to go live early next spring. It's imperative that the first 5-10 images viewed on a website give the maximum amount of impact to a potential customer. It's also extremely important to hold your viewer's attention and hopefully sell your product in the first few minutes that the site is viewed

We hired a model at the weekend to shoot some promo images for our website. The models' name was Helen who was very experienced and professional which makes the shooting experience that much quicker and easier. Helen had all her own wedding clothes,bouquets,props etc which is ideal for us as we do not have to hire costumes. It's crictical that your model has experience. Shown here are some image/videos of Jim and myself hard at work which outline some of our techniques used to produce our photography on the day

Soucing a decent location to shoot your models is paramount for a successful shoot and old buildings are an ideal backdrop to give your images that special ambiance. I gained permission from the church we used from the National Trust before we shot our images. The church had some lovely old stone buildings with beautiful textures which complimented our model and shows off her looks

It's imperative to make your model feel at ease, and its vital that you have a good rapport with your subject. We are always constantly talking to our models throughout our shoots, cracking jokes and general chit chat etc,this makes the modelling assignment so much easier and gives your model more confidence which is benificial to all party's

We used off camera flash triggered through a soft box for a lot of our shots in these images. This creates a much softer light that tends to wrap around our subjects and also creates a warming effect, this also eliminates harsh shadows. This kind of side lighting is very effective as opposed to direct flash pointed directly at your subject and is used by all top photographers

It's also very important to show the model your progress throughout the shoot,which enables her to make changes,change poses and gives them her an overall feel of the tasks in hand,we regularly show our models the images we are shooting on the back of our cameras

It is also essential to have a lighting/prop person available to help with your shoot. This person's contribution is very important to help setup lighting,stands,reflectors,backdrop's etc which helps the photographer concentrate solely on taking some good photographs.

Shown here is our prop man with some of the difusers we used on the day

It is very important to pre-plan your shoot something that I did a couple of weeks ago and there is a lot of planning involved

This is a list of the preparations I made :

I had to source my model first from an online model agency

Then Source some locations for the shoot

I had to gain permissions from the owners of the locations to shoot on their land

Plan the shoot when the weather was fine and arrange a suitable day and time with my model

Arrange the shoot on a fine day to prevent damage to equipment etc

Arrange for a prop/lighting man to assist with the lighting setups

Consider health and safety.The health and safety of my model was also very important  and I had to make sure there was no issues with trip hazards,trailing cables or dangerous locations

I also had to provide changing facilities for my model, these included a church and the back of my colleagues land-rover

I had to provide a model release form allowing me to use our images of the day in advertising and media publications

The only downside of the shoot was the model forgot her wedding shoes,luckily the dress she wore was a very long one which hid a nice blue pair of Nike trainers

Burton College Fashion Shoot 2012

James Woodings and I were commissioned by Kerry Wilkinson from Burton Chamber of commerce and Emma Strange Course Leader of Burton and south Derbyshire college to produce a set of images for their BSDC 2012 fashion show. The show which is part of the college's annual Creative studies Arts exhibition was held at Burton Town Hall from 18-22nd June

I was granted permission by Kerry Wilkinson to publish some of the images from the night on my blog for course work purposes only

I was given a brief from Emma to produce some ambient light images of the night without the use of any kind of flash or any artificial lighting. The purpose of this was to record the ambiance of the show which would highlight the coloured lighting and smoke effects generated which contributed to the atmosphere of the evening

I decided to use a Canon 5D Mk 2 Full frame camera to record the images. I choose this camera because of it's low light capabilities which enabled me to use really high end ISO speeds without to much noise being evident in my images. This camera is renown for producing excellent quality low light images without the inclusion of hardly any noise at all. The majority of the images were recorded at 4000 ISO and about 30 at 5000 ISO
I was still able to hand hold my camera at these high end ISO's which still enabled me to use a shutter speed of 125th of a second which eliminated any blurred images

The show was lit by a variety of coloured flashing spot/laser/lighting and which played havoc with my camera's light meter. Using my camera's built in light meter under these challenging conditions threw the rule book out of the window and I had to use all of my skill and judgement to conjure up the correct exposures for the images. Thrown into the mix were intermittent blasts of theatrical smoke which made my exposures even more tricky and challenging

I found the assignment to be fairly challenging but well within my capabilities. The images shown here were all straight out of camera with just a small amount of sharpening applied

in Photoshop. All were shot with ambient light which which gives a true representation of the ambience of the evening

James and I decided on two approaches to record the images. Jim would be positioned on the rear balcony of the Town Hall looking down onto the models. We decided Jim would record all the formal shots some with flash and some without using a Canon 70-200 F4 Zoom Lens. Jim would record the more narrow angle shots of the models mainly walking on their own along the catwalk.

We agreed I would shoot the more wide angled shots close up to the stage including groups of people,  the building and the lighting. To achieve this I used a Canon 24-105 L series wide angle zoom lens. Most shots were taken with 4000 ISO 

The shots above were taken more to portray the ambience and atmosphere of the event. I wanted the viewer to feel the atmosphere of the evening. Using any kind of flash lighting would have ruined the shots which would have washed out the colours and illuminated the smoke to intensely. I angled some of my shots which gives the viewer a more interesting perspective and view point of my subjects

I found the models easy to photograph on the evening and there was plenty of time to compose my shots. I moved in very close to the stage edge and most shots were recorded 3-4 feet away from my subjects. Using an aperture of mainly F4 enabled me to let enough light into the camera and still use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze any action

I had to shoot my images quickly and efficiently as I was standing in front of the main audience at the venue. I was crouching down mainly just below and in front of the models. I chose this location and position as to give the maximum amount realism to my shots. Shooting any further back would have included people and rows of seating which would have reined the shots. I was able to steady my camera on the edge of the stage  for some of the images

Overall I was very pleased with the majority of images recorded on the night. I shot the images in raw + jpg which gave me the option and  versatility to manipulate the images even further in Photoshop. Shooting in raw enabled me to select a number of different white balances should I have needed them

The client was very pleased with the images shot on the evening and James and myself received very positive feedback from Emma who had requested the images. Emma has used and distributed a lot of the images from the shoot amongst students from her college to use in their course work's and projects

Jordan Model shoot

 (Jordan) Male Model Shoot

Under construction

I was commissioned by a work colleague to photograph a relation of her family who has the potential and ambition and to become a male model. Jordan a 13 year old teenager shown here in the college studio is a trendy 13 year old guy with the good looks and the confidence to possibly make some money out of a modelling career.

I used the college Photography studio to produce the images and I worked to a brief which was to produce a set of images which would be good enough to send to model agencies and catalogue companies that require male models on their books

I was given a brief to photograph Jordan in a variety of different outfits ranging from football kits to casual wear in a variety of different poses 

I researched a variety of different model poses which I new would suit a 13 year old teenager,some of these are shown here below:

I used a variety of different lenses for the assignment but the main ones were a Canon 24-105 F4  L series and a Canon 50mm 1.4 usm

Jordan was very nervous at the beginning of the shoot and he found it hard to achieve certain poses which were required in the brief. I new I had to bond with him to form a repour and gain his confidence which would enable him to relax and feel at ease. I find chatting and joking with my subjects helps them to relax and feel at ease. After 20 mins or so behind the camera Jordan started to come out of his shell and I and eventually got the shots I was looking for. 

Shown on this blog are a few images from the shoot which I am quite pleased with. I used the combination of 4 Bowens studio heads with a combination of various soft boxes and beauty dishes to manipulate my lighting setups

I was trying to achieve a type of Butterfly/Paramount lighting which eliminates any shadows on the models face

I used a main modelling light with a soft defuser and a secondary soft box light under construction

Shown here is my studio setup.

The eyes of any portrait are the heart of the image and these have to be pin sharp. If you can include catchlights all the better. I deliberately included catchlights in Jordans eyes when I shot my images, adding catchlights to a subjects eyes gives them a sparkle which makes them stand out from the rest of the image


I used 1 single Af point through my camera view finder,this allowed me to position my focal point on the most critical point of the the image the eye

It's important to form a good rep

our with your subject and to gain their confidence
,showing the recorded images juring playback to my model helps to booste their confidence